This arc was provided to me for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 Stars

First, I was unaware of what I was getting into when I read this book. It was only until half way that I realized there was a previous book series. I would have liked to have read that series before I started this one. Just so I could have understood the background of the world more. However, that is my fault and mine alone.
I did in fact enjoy this book as it had all the makings of my kind of novel. It had adventure, dragons, romance, and some good fights. I really liked Tess as a character as the story evolved because she slowly lets you in a little bit at a time. You think you know exactly who she is until you see a little bit more.

This book revolves around Tess, the eldest daughter who has somehow shamed herself and now must help her sister marry. Tess being the troublemaker she is causes a scene at the wedding and her family attempts to send her to a nunnery. That is when Tess finally decided to leave it all behind and run. Tess has a grand adventure before her and we meet some very entertaining characters.

Tess’s background is what hit me the hardest, we are led to believe it was one thing, but, it’s not. I appreciated Tess because she wanted to be more than what the men in her life wanted her to be. She never would have been meant for a mundane lifestyle.

If you like dragons and long adventures, then I would highly recommend this book to you. The characters alone are worth the read.

I found this book to be a little underwhelming. Perhaps if I had read Seraphina, I would have been more invested in the world, but the book felt like it relied a lot on having already read that series.

Tess of the Road

By Rachel Hartman.

Audacious, irrepressible, brave and intelligent Therese Dombegh, at the age of six and a half, saved the life of a quigutl. The quig, whose name was Pathka, was found laying eggs in the cellar of the Dombegh home. It was in distress. The last egg, which was larger than the rest, was stuck its cloaca. Without aid, Pathka was going to die if someone did not help get the egg out. Tessie, despite the awful smell, tenderly cared for the lizard, soothing and lubricating the partially exposed egg. But when told to press on the quig's sternum, she poked a bit too vigorously, causing a the quig a great deal of pain. Thankfully, that popped the egg free. It was the first time she saved Pathka's life and the beginning of a long friendship.

As a daughter of the lesser nobility, Tess was considered both a financial asset and a liability. An asset so long as she remained a virgin before marriage; a liability if otherwise. Exuberant, willful and inquisitive Tess did not follow the course of "honor." And so, at seventeen, having ruined herself, she had but two options, life as a nun, or as her sister's servant. Near to despair, she chose neither.

Tessie fled a domineering and unforgiving mother, a weak, unsuccessful father, two insulting younger brothers and Jeanne, her ever needful twin sister. She shook free of a society so hidebound and judgmental that by comparison England's Victorians would seem like drunken libertines. On the road, Tessie will reconnect with Pathka, and save his life again. Together they will seek the "Most Alone."

“Tess of the Road,” is set in the world of the author’s wildly successful duology “Seraphina” and “Dark Scale.” Like them, it is a wonderfully imagined fantasy, but it is also something more profound. It is a cautionary tale for young women and a marker for adults who are dealing with the kind of problems precocious girls make for themselves. All in all, “Tess of the Road” carries this solemnity well and remains a sweet piece of storytelling. The world is vibrant, filled with dragons, serpents, people, and scenes that must make lesser authors have fits. The dialog is realistic, or appropriately fanciful, where needed. In short, this is the kind of book that makes reading fantasy novels such pleasure.

Highly recommended with this warning: drunkenness, teen pregnancy, lying, and thievery play significant parts in the story.

Random House Books and NetGalley provided an advance digital copy for this review.

I was attracted to this book since I loved the character, Seraphina, and the two previous books in the series. Tess is Seraphina's half-sister, unhappy at home and has an independent streak and a drive for adventure. From the title of the book, it's no mystery that Tess strikes out on her own on an adventurous road trip,disguising herself as a member of the clergy and meeting interesting characters along the way. An enjoyable read.

I received a free e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher!

5/5 Stars

This is harsh, real and incredibly complex book; it is not for someone who likes action or is looking for a mindless adventure. This book goes back to the classic world building and the tradition of the 19th century bildungsroman. It focuses mainly on the identity of a woman in a patriarchal world and reminds me a lot of Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and if you know Hardy – you know that this book is not for the feint hearted. Hartman is not afraid to explore difficult social issues such as an identity of a ‘fallen woman,’ self-identity, depression, jealousy and self-discovery.

We join Tess at 16 years of age and embark on a journey with her. The book is written in flashbacks, both past and present and in it we go on a self-discovery journey. I think one of the reasons why I loved this book so much was because I related to Tess a lot. She is flawed, she is burdened with responsibility not only for herself, but for that of her sister. One of my best friends, Susan, said it great at the end of her review (see here) that being an immigrant, where family is everything and you need to sacrifice yourself for the family unit – it is often seen as callous and selfish to choose yourself. It is a topic which I still find myself struggling with and not feeling guilty about putting myself and my won happiness first. I also think that it is a topic that is inherent to both females and males, especially in any family centered society, but is not discussed in today’s fantasy literature, or I should say it is not discussed a lot (Sanderson deals with it in his Stormlight Archive). Hartman really tackles these issues head on and does an incredible job of it.

I will admit that I have no read the previous two books by Hartman, however, after reading Tess I just purchased both.

I highly recommend this book for anyone struggling with self-identity, self-discovery and acceptance. This is not a book for those who like fast paced adventures.

Like many girls today, Tess is angry. Angry at her family for their mistreatment, at herself for past mistakes, and at the male-dominated society in which she feels trapped. When she runs away, she has only a vague idea of where she’s going, but ends up tagging along on an old friend’s quest to find a mythical serpent. What follows is not exactly an adventure, but rather a pilgrimage, in which Tess makes peace with herself as a woman in a medieval society whose expectations of women she is unwilling and unable to fulfill. In Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman masterfully spins the redemption story of an unlikable female protagonist, with the ultimate message that being a girl is not a failure requiring redemption.

Tess of the Road is an exciting adventure. I loved the character of Tess. She had so many flaws and shortcomings and yet she persevered through it all, even when all she could do is take each day at a time. Every teen girl should read this book to realize that you don't have to be perfect or overcome each obstacle effortlessly.

DNF at 50%. The plot was slow and it didn't seem like it was going anywhere. I did enjoy some of the references to Seraphina, and the characters started out intriguing then I got bored.

This is closer to a 3.5 than a 3-star book, but just not quite enough to bump it to a 4.

Cards on the table: I love Rachel Hartman’s Goredd universe. I remember first picking up Seraphina on a whim back in late 2012 and was swept away by Hartman’s elegant prose and richly-imagined world. From the creative way in which Hartman introduced and created her dragons within the human society to the way in which she introduced and integrated Goredd’s religion and its various Saints, as well as all the way to the characters.

After all, a rich world is nothing without characters to fill it, especially characters in whom I am deeply invested. I loved Seraphina and all the other characters that circled around her, whether it be her dragon uncle, the prince, her close friend — it didn’t matter, I was invested. They were without doubt one of the strongest elements of the novel, not only due to their complexity, but in just how much I cared for them; I wanted nothing but happiness for them. It made Shadow Scale one of my most anticipated reads of 2015, and getting access to the ARC of that novel was enough to get to cancel any and all plans I had and hunker down to read the entire novel in one sitting.

So getting the chance to return to Goredd, and from a different perspective…yeah, it didn’t take much to convince me I needed to read this book.

The first thing that struck me while reading Tess of the Road is how I had completely forgotten about Seraphina’s family. I had vaguely remembered her father, but — and I’m ashamed to admit it — her stepmother, stepsisters, and stepbrothers had entirely slipped my mind. I didn’t remember them at all. Needless to say, it took me a moment to realize that Tess was, in fact, one of Seraphina’s younger stepsisters.

And, unfortunately, Tess is no Seraphina. I feel it’s unfair to say as, of course, there’s no way that Tess could be Seraphina — to start with, she’s not half-dragon — and so to compare these two protagonists is an exercise in futility. They are incredibly different from each other, which is put into even sharper relief when Seraphina herself actually shows up, more than once to my great delight. The problem with Tess is not necessarily that she’s unlikeable, but that, for me, she’s grating. At first, I couldn’t grasp how Hartman could have written a character like Tess, one who was such a drag to follow and who did nothing to either endear me to her or invest me in her journey. Of course, the entire point of Tess of the Road is that it’s more a journey of inner self-discovery and healing more than any sort of plot, so starting with Tess as she is, it’s worth it to follow her journey. I still never quite warmed to her, but I most certainly softened towards her, especially by the end when she had come to terms with herself.

Also, I just had to add: wow, I really loathed Tess’s mother (Seraphina’s stepmother). I really, truly dislike that woman.

But moving on to the plot…there isn’t much of one. That’s not necessarily to the novel’s detriment as it makes it fairly clear that this is more an inner journey of self-discovery for Tess than it is a true road-trip novel of adventures — there is a road trip, and there are adventures, but they’re not necessarily the novel’s true focus. While that certainly does drag the pacing of what I had hoped would be a faster, more “fun” novel, part of me was willing to continue powering through some of the many points where I considered pausing my reading. Of course, I know that if I pause a Goredd book and then attempt to go back to it, it’ll be a struggle, and so, rather like Tess on her Road — capitalized by our heroine herself — I continued walking on.

Ultimately, this book lacked, for me, some of the magic of what made the original Seraphina duology so wonderful and borderline mind-blowing; there was a spark that just wasn’t present, and it made Tess of the Road a far more difficult reading experience than either of its predecessors. That being said, I still think that Tess of the Road is a phenomenal story of self-discovery and learning to live with, as well as love and forgive, oneself. The raw, personal journey of Tess is one that may not always endear the reader to her, but will certainly strike home and true with more than one person.

It just takes a bit of effort to get to that point.

Tess Dombegh has always known she was bad—if her mother’s constant reminders of her sinful nature hadn’t been proof enough, her unwed pregnancy certainly was—but she’s spent the past few years trying to make up for it by looking after her twin sister and helping her find a husband. At the wedding, faced with the prospect of becoming a caretaker for her sister’s future children and being forever tied to her family, she makes a series of mistakes that have her mother threatening to send her to the nuns. Tess makes a different choice. She runs, disguising herself as a man as she begins her journey down the road. She soon crosses paths with her childhood friend Pathka, a quigutl—a dragon-like creature—who reminds her of their early obsession with the guigutl stories of the World Serpents, great creatures larger than dragons with incredible, mythic abilities. Together, they begin their search for the World Serpents, but Tess still has a lot of walking—and figuring out—to do before she’ll be ready to face the dangers and challenges of the road.

I didn’t actually realize this was a companion book to another series (Seraphina) until after I’d already started it, but I found it easy enough to keep up. Hartman does a good job of introducing the world and the characters without assuming you’ve read the other books or relying too heavily on their plot. I imagine reading the Seraphina duology would give you a deeper understanding of some of the characters and background (and Seraphina does play a role in the novel as Tess’s older sister), but it never feels like you’re diving into the middle of a series.

One of the most interesting aspects of Tess of the Road was the rich world building. Hartman has constructed a really fascinating fantasy world with dragons who are cold and analytical, quigutl, the dragon-like creatures who are generally discounted and misunderstood by both humans and their dragon cousins, and the humans who live alongside them all.

I also enjoyed Tess and Pathka—arguably the two main characters—and their unusual friendship, though both of them got on my nerves occasionally. Tess essentially came from a background of abuse (her mother used harsh religious beliefs to convince Tess she was inherently bad and worthless) and her upbringing and a series of other awful events from her teenage years which are revealed slowly throughout the course of the novel combine to give her a good deal of trauma and self-doubt / loathing. In particular, she has a lot of ingrained beliefs about the sinfulness of women and their bodies that—while I could definitely understand and relate to having grown up in the South—I also wished could’ve been addressed more head on and also contradicted more readily and frequently by other characters, if not Tess herself. Tess does mostly come to realize these teachings are wrong and misguided by the end of the book, but it took so long to get there and with so little push back against those ideas that I sometimes found that disheartening.

The book also—I must admit—seemed to drag on in places. It’s a long book, and in some ways not a lot happens. Tess has plenty of encounters on the road, but most of them aren’t really relevant to the overall plot. That's fine, of course, but sometimes it made the book feel very slow and a bit disconnected.

All in all, it was an enjoyable book, and I particularly liked the world building, but the pacing was just a difficult issue for me to get past. When a long book feels long, it’s generally not one I’m going to want to come back to.

The plot dragged at certain points and I could not finish it. Which is a sham because I loved Seraphina's story.

DNF 50%

I was a bit scared that not having read Seraphina & The Shadow Scale could affect/spoil this reading*.
I wish that were the case.
However, sadly, I hated this book for very different reasons.

➤ Tess was a huge disappointment. The prologue presents us Tess as a child and I adored her: she was a wildfire, pure energy. Comparing that little girl with Grown-Up-Tess… well, I wondered where all her sparkle went. Grown-Up-Tess took life lying down and seemed just a faded, grudging version of that little, adorable troublemaker. I never linked with her.

➤ The other characters weren't any better: Tess’s parents were detestable; a hamster has more personality than Jeanne – Tess’s twin; Seraphina was probably the most interesting one, but - seen through Tess's eyes – she did not come out very nice…

➤ The vision about women: I'm just going to be blunt, the idea that the book seems to convey is that women can be either domestic angels or whores. I guess the concept was repeated so often (through Tess’ mother’s bitter reprimands, through St. Vitt’- “the most implacable and unsympathetic Saint in Heaven” - sanctimonious wisdom, through Tess’ tantrums), I nearly started believing it myself.

➤ The pace was pretty slow and the overall plot just seemed to me completely pointless and inconclusive. Most of the time I simply had no idea where the Author was going with this.

➤The consequence was that I was mortally bored. Eventually, I threw in the towel and decided to give up.

* In retrospect, I'd suggest to read them first, because there are plenty of references to Seraphina's world and myths - and Seraphina herself pops up here and there.

Tess has always been the black sheep of her family. That's saying a lot when she has a step-sister who is half dragon and half human. She isn't your average ya heroine either. She is full of self loathing, anger, jealousy, resentment and just a mess!

This story is her life journey. She hasn't had an easy life. She's always been inquisitive to a fault. From the early age of six she gets in trouble for kissing her cousin/uncle because she wants to understand where babies come from. Her view is misdirected as most children's are.

Fast forward to her being sixteen and spending all of her strength to find her twin sister a husband. She would do anything for her twin. Unfortunately she screws that up too on her sister's wedding night by punching the groom's brother in the nose in an aristocratic society where women shouldn't do such things.

Tess has some intense secrets of her own and would do anything to keep them hidden, including running away after her seventeenth birthday to remake herself and change her destiny. This is just the beginning of Tess's journey through magical lands with lizard type sentient creatures and dragons. All on her way to true self discovery and fighting through her arduous past.

I would definitely recommend this novel to someone who wants to deep dive into a made up world and immerse themselves in someone else's life and problems. There are heavy topics dealt with in this book so don't go into this book thinking it will be an easy read.

One thing I found myself struggling with was Tess's alcoholism and her using it to escape her problems rather than dealing with them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this novel for a fair and honest review.

I started off LOVING this story within the Prologue. I laughed and laughed, the kind of guffaw that is embarrassing if you do so in front of others. The story simmered down to the high end of 3 stars as it went. It's weird, it's horrifying and bizarre yet familiar. A coming of age set in a religious fantasy, magical and ever so slightly steampunkish world. I as yet have not read the Seraphina series and this book gives just enough background to stand on its own. I didn't realize this until I started reading Tess of the Road.

The story is rather dark and soul-sapping at times. But it has it's moments of joy and rapture too. For the later, I kept reading. So many topics are here for discussion, parenting skills, rape, naivety, worldliness, travel and the dangers and wonders that linger there, self-realization and acceptance, sex (although no graphic details - thank you!), friendship and villainy and gender choices. But my favorite thing about the story is Rachel's word usage. It was enough to make me smile and a couple of times turn to the dictionary, but it wasn't a chore throughout, it didn't feel forced just for the sake of using the word. If that makes any sense. On that note, it was a joy to read!

I found this book hard to get into and I thought it was just me being in a slight slump but I finally looked up the author and apparently this is a spin off story? Which makes sense now because I felt like the world was already built and I felt like I should have known more about Seraphina. In short, I was lost in the beginning and I lost interest fairly quickly therefore this was a DNF. For now at least. I'm going to go back and read the others and then come back to this one.

From the beginning of this novel, I realized that it would be a completely unique story from the main novel, but still holds the the same elements of the original stories. This character is a strong young woman, dedicated to her family, and searching for her place in the world. I believe that many youths could relate to this book and find comfort in a struggle that many of us go through.

Many of you may know Hartman's prior novel Seraphina, but I, on the other hand, haven't had the chance to read it myself. Despite this, and despite both books being set in the same world, I was glad to discover that I never felt out of place or lost while reading this. Although the plot itself was rather slow and uneventful for me, and I felt as if there could have been a little more immersion into this wonderful, dragon-filled world, I especially liked Tess. I liked that Tess didn't immediately call for sympathy from the reader, but that never stopped her. She had a certain unlikeableness that just drew the reader in, and I really wanted to see where she would end up. I thought Harman did a good job with the topic of rape culture, but I also felt as if there was some grit missing, and maybe some more healing. Tess certainly earned her sympathy and heroic status, and I think she's a strong female character that younger girls would like to look up towards.

I never expected to be accepted for this ARC tbh, I'm still so surprised!! I think this was both my first big 5 ARC and the first time I've read a book the YEAR before it's published. I was also so excited for this book ever since I heard about it because I loved Seraphina. Actually, I went back and reread Seraphina and Shadow Scale after I finished this and everything makes so much more sense honestly.

I wholeheartedly loved this book; the plot, the writing, the characters, the worldbuilding, all of these were astounding. (ALSO uhhhh confirmed polyamory between some characters from Seraphina, I loved it and cried a little :'). ) Tess of the Road also covers so many issues that I personally have not seen much in the fantasy genre. It covers topics such as having to change your mindset after years of being constantly told that you aren't enough, finding yourself, and healing after past traumas. (tw: rape mention throughout the book [although implied] and this review)

After successfully getting her sister betrothed, Tess is happy to leave her family behind and live with her sister after she gets married. But she ruins it, like she ruins everything (or so she's told), so she runs away and meets her childhood friend, a quigutl. They go off on an adventure to find a Great Serpent although they run into several obstacles along the way.

Tess of the Road, at its heart, is about faith and lack thereof. While not religious, I've always been fascinated by people's faith, how they can believe in something so wholeheartedly, and this book surprised me. Tess is dealing with her own faith, so to speak, even though the world knows the truth about the Saints (spoilers for Seraphina, so I don't want to say). Her mother devoutly quotes the few saints that preached about sin; basically she polices Tess over her entire life, guilting her about her "bad" decisions. Feeling stifled, Tess rebels, which turns out badly for her, so then she feels this need to make up for her sins and be the girl her mother always wanted her to be. And when she can't stand it again? She runs away, this time resigned to the fact that she is a bad person, having basically been told that her entire life.

On the road, Tess realizes how wrong her mother was. What I loved about Rachel Hartman's writing is that she doesn't demonize religion here, even after Tess rejects all of the preachings of her childhood. She comes across a nun in a hospice, and she expects her to judge Tess for her sins. Unexpectedly, though, the nun doesn't. Instead she helps Tess recognize that, even though she's been told she's a bad person all her life, she is good; that just because she doesn't follow the teachings of a couple of saints doesn't mean that she's a sinner. This religious person helps Tess in her journey, rather than confirming her fears of being an inherently bad person, which was a surprise to me.

Along the way of coming to terms with herself, Tess also begins to actually believe in something. The Great Serpent she and her friend are seeking is wholly a quigutl belief. Despite living in a world with dragons and quigutls, the humans and dragons believe that the Great Serpents are myths and that the quigutls foolishly believe in a story. This, essentially, is the opposite of the religion of Tess's life, and her faith in this "story" again helps her to find her real self, not the person that she's been told she is.

The quigutl beliefs are a wonderful part of the worldbuilding. The stories build on the world we were introduced to in Seraphina and show us a completely different side of it. Some of the things were confusing, yet made sense, like the contradictory -utl suffix. We live in a world of oxymorons and paradoxes, and Hartman really captures this with GRAMMAR! I loved it so much; even though it was such a small detail, it adds so much to this world we journey to.

One thing I was wary of was the romance. I was really just caught off guard by it, but it helped Tess to heal after her first "romance," so I wasn't entirely put off of it. Also, the ending still left a couple of unraveled threads, so I'm honestly holding out for a sequel, but there probably won't be one. It does end nicely, albeit unexpectedly, and I'm content with where we leave off.

Tess of the Road was an incredible read; it covers topics that we so rarely get in the fantasy genre. We can all see a little of ourselves in Tess, and as we follow her along her journey on the Road, we can find ourselves healed with her. While you don't necessarily have to read Seraphina and Shadow Scale before reading this book, it helps with the background. Tess of the Road is an astonishing, breathtaking, wondrous gem of a book, one that I can't wait to read again.

It's been a long while since I've read Seraphina, and while I loved that one, the sequel wasn't as good, so I was a bit more open minded when I began this book. Since it's been so long since I've read the others, I'd forgotten nearly everything, and reading Tess' book brought a lot of it back.

You don't need to read Seraphina first, but it does a better job explaining the world and the creatures and cultures living there. Tess' book doesn't explain as much, and you'll waste time trying to figure it all out.

Tess is a great narrator. She's a mischievous overly active girl in a world where women must be seen and not heard. She's been repressed most of her life, and she's now trying to figure out who she really is, without the overbearing reign of her parental figures. So it's a self-discovery book, but the characters are well developed, and the book kept me up way into the night, so I'd say it's well-written too.

First off, readers should be aware that this isn't a "clean" book. There's a lot in here about women's bodies, child-bearing, and relations. It's not a dirty romance book, but I would suggest caution before recommending this to young children. On the other hand, this is a well-written cautionary tale of what can go wrong when people go Too Far, which is great for YA.

That aside, this is a great book. Hartman struck gold again in the great female character department. This is girl focused, and boys are the bad guys here. Like, really bad. I'm really impressed with the way Hartman depicted the position of women in a male dominated world. I love Tess' attitude, the way she never truly gives up on being herself, even when everyone around her demands otherwise.

This isn't so much a book about magic or dragons or any of the typical fantasy genres out there. I mean, it has that in the world, but this is mostly about a girl rising above abuse, figuring out who she is, and overcoming several traumatic episodes from her past. It's a fantasy alright, but it's a fresh breath of wind to the genre.

This kind of reminds me of Huckleberry Finn - it's that episodic way it's written - like every town on Tess' road is another episode, another place to relieve a memory, fix something in the present, and keep walking on.

Again, it's not the typical fantasy book, but I really recommend it.

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't like to read reviews before I've jotted down my own impressions of a book, though I usually cast my eyes rapidly down the Goodreads column, picking out words here and there. While doing that to this book, I got more whiplash than usual: superlatives in one chunk of text would be followed by "bored" "hated" "impossible" and the like.

I guess I can see that. My own impression of this book, which I finished a few days ago, and have been contemplating since, is "a glorious mess."

Things I liked: the dragon creatures and their anarchic, truly weird, customs and outlook and (rather gross) physicality.

I liked Tess's entire arc. It's an earned arc. I might have misgivings about how we got there, but when we arrived it was so satisfying, and the underlying emotional damage resonated with soul-damaging truth. (view spoiler)

I loved the writing, with its closely observed bits of human behavior, contributing to complexity. (And some really nifty turns of phrase, with only one grammar bobble in the entire thing, so rare!) Hartman writes with such rich, wild imagery, and zings of humor when one least expects it.

I loved the nuns we met later in the book, including older women with refreshingly acerb and practical outlook, while squarely placed in the given worldview. These are not twenty-first century Americans shoehorned into a fake-fantasy world with a religion specifically designed to be horrible. (Though at first it read that way.)

Which brings me to stuff I had trouble with. (view spoiler)

But these are all highly subjective reactions, which I hesitate to call flaws. Which is why I think of the book as an eminently readable, insightful, glorious mess.